


How It Is For Us

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:29:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clarke Griffin,” Bellamy grins, “Did you streak naked down the street once, for Truth or Dare?”</p><p>“I was thirteen, and in my underwear,” she says primly, and he laughs loud enough to shake her, where she’s pressed up against his chest. His hand is warm on the space where her hip meets her thigh, and he slides his thumb under her shirt, to stroke at the skin there.</p><p>“Alright, I’ll bite,” he decides, setting his beer down again so she’ll know he’s serious. “Truth or Dare?”</p><p>Clarke pretends to think about it for a moment, even though she always picks the same thing. “Dare.”</p><p>Bellamy grins, delighted, like that’s what he’d been planning for all along. He’ll probably just have her streak naked down the street, because once again, the dares are always expected.</p><p>But instead he says “I dare you to kiss me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Is For Us

**Author's Note:**

> literally just college fluff because why not.  
> it was originally going to involve a lot more of bellamy being jealous over wells and just generally being an idiot, but clearly that didn't happen, and i like it better this way anyhow. who needs jealousy drama when you can have truth or dare smut, instead?
> 
> some disclaimers: i know literally nothing about sororities or fraternities except for what i've learned from the movies, which isn't much. apparently there's a lot of friendship and alcohol. that's basically what i took away from those cinematic experiences.

Clarke knows she shouldn’t be nervous, has no real _reason_ to be nervous; she’s introduced lots of people to Wells. She’s introduced all of her best friends and past romantic partners to Wells. But none of them have been _Bellamy_.

“So, what I’m hearing is this is the Older Brother vetting,” Raven says knowingly, from where she’s setting up the Adirondack chairs. She and Clarke arrived at the cottage just that morning, after getting a late start because Raven was adamant they have a road trip soundtrack on actual bonafide CD’s, even though the drive itself was just four hours.

“He’s not getting _vetted_ ,” Clarke grumbles, running a hand through her messy hair because she keeps forgetting she’d tied it up in a bun. “I just—what if they don’t like each other?”

“Wells likes everybody,” Raven says, which is true. “And everybody likes Wells,” she adds, which is also true. “It’s pretty much a fool-proof system.”

Clarke scowls at the fire pit, a pile of ash and freshly chopped wood lined in a circle with her mom’s terra cotta bricks. “But what if it isn’t?”

Raven heaves an enormous sigh, so Clarke will know that she’s tired of her bullshit. Which seems fair; Clarke’s tired of it, too. “You’re overthinking this.” She lays a hand on Clarke’s shoulder, for support. “You don’t even know for sure that Blake’s into you. You might be worrying for nothing.” She gives a sunny smile, which Clarke returns.

“Wow, you’re right, I can’t believe I just _assumed_ he likes me.”

“You know what they say about a-s-s-u-m-i-n-g,” Raven chirps. “It drives your housemates up the fucking wall. Just ask the guy out, Griffin, like a _normal_ person. _Normal_ people don’t have their childhood friend act as a romance compass.”

“That’s because those people don’t know Wells.” Clarke would feel stranger about it if it didn’t always work, to be honest. Wells has never steered her wrong, when it comes to her love life. He tends to like everyone, and give people the benefit of the doubt, but he’s not naïve, and he has a knack for when people are lying. He had it with Finn, and later with Lexa, and Clarke trusts his opinion more than her own.

It’s Clarke’s first year in the sorority, and she met Bellamy on her first day. There was a mixer at his frat’s house, and all of Greek Row was invited. Clarke didn’t know anyone except for her new Sisters, and even then, she didn’t really know any of them very well.

Bellamy was standing by the kitchen door, when Clarke first saw him. She didn’t even realize he belonged to the frat at first, figured he was just a student taking a smoke break, blowing his exhales out through the hole where the screen should have been in the storm door. He took one look at Clarke, standing uncertain with her beer in the doorway, and smirked, and she knew he was trouble.

Every time Clarke looks back at that night, she wonders why it didn’t end with her following Bellamy up to his room so he could blow her mind, like all the stories she’s heard from her loose-lipped housemates. By all rights it should have; he flirted with her, offering her a stronger drink, and Clarke flirted back, making a show of checking the bottle’s seal, so he tipped his head back and laughed. They ended up at the beer pong table in what should have been the dining room, goading each other even though they were both pretty shitty at it, and lost. Then it was quarters on the kitchen counter, which Clarke actually _was_ good at, and dumb magic tricks that Bellamy looked up on Youtube, and wanted to show off.

In the middle of everything, he’d turned to her and grinned, mouth turned sloppy by the alcohol, and said “You wanna see something amazing?”

That’s the kind of thing that should lead to making out, Clarke’s pretty sure, but instead Bellamy just took her outside to the wrap around porch, where there was an ancient looking trellis propped up against the side of the house. The paint was chipping off the wood because it’d been left out in the rain too long, but Bellamy didn’t seem to care and so Clarke didn’t either, just scurried up after him, onto the little jut of roof that hung over the front entrance.

The roof was made up of the sticky kind of asphalt that crumbled wherever Clarke touched it, and it was still warm from that day’s sun. Bellamy stretched out, letting his feet dangle over the edge, and Clarke followed suit, pillowing her head on her hands. Bellamy reached out a hand to point at a specific cluster of stars up above them.

“That’s Orion, the hunter,” he said. “Those three middle stars are his belt, and that’s his head, his arms and legs. See?”

She didn’t, so she made a face and he laughed again. The air was chilly, so Clarke pulled her arms into her shirts, to warm them up on the skin of her belly. Bellamy laughed at that too, and shrugged off his sweater, to drape it over her like a blanket.

She nodded off soon after, and Bellamy poked her and then helped her back down the trellis, since she was too sleepy and drunk to make it on her own. She woke up tucked into his bed, in messy forest green sheets with moose on them, that smelled like boy, and found Bellamy passed out on the couch downstairs.

Maybe _that_ should have led to a first date, or at least a morning-after hookup—but it didn’t. She woke him and he gave this fucking _cute_ smile, still half-asleep. And he was wearing glasses, which he hadn’t had on last night, and cooked them both the greasiest eggs Clarke has ever eaten, and they chatted about classes, which professors she should be wary of, and the best coffee on campus.

And somehow Clarke’s managed to turn that into a friendship, probably her favorite friendship at school, but she still hasn’t figured out why they aren’t _more_ than that, yet. She’s heard enough to know that Bellamy’s a player, he likes to make the first move and he goes after what he wants.

But she also knows he hasn’t hooked up with anyone since last semester, and she’s confident enough to think that might be because of her. _She_ hasn’t hooked up with anyone in six weeks, and that’s definitely because of him. Clarke sucks at casual sex, and it’s probably pretty shitty to date someone while she’s in love with someone else. Niylah was understanding, but that was months ago, and Clarke’s almost wound up enough to just snap and drag Bellamy off to some spare room and demand he make out with her.

Almost.

She didn’t actually even notice she was half in love with Bellamy Blake, until he got in a fight with his frat president, Graham.

He’d shown up on her sorority’s doorstep, just two months after that first mixer—two months of study dates at the on-campus coffee shop and library, and fooseball games when the table was actually free, and stupid Roman myths that he liked to tell her in the original Latin, just to show off. Two months of him sitting still for once, to let her do bone structure studies when his brain was melting because of declensions. Two months of swapping childhood stories—hers filled with summer camp and the lakeside cottage, his filled with pranks on his little sister and getting stung by wasps because he refused to stop climbing the fucking trees.

He grinned down at her sheepishly when she opened the door, dressed sloppily in her pajamas, with hair too tragic for words and barely any thoughts in her head, since it was before eight AM.

It took her a few minutes to realize that the smudge on his cheek wasn’t really a smudge, but a _bruise_. Bellamy was standing on her door step with a packed duffel bag and a black eye.

“What the fuck,” she grumbled, and he snorted, pressing a Styrofoam to-go cup into her hands.

“Yeah, I pretty much figured that’d be your reaction,” he said, only grinning a little, as Clarke drank her coffee so fast it nearly burned.

And it nearly burned her for another reason, because—it was from the campus coffee shop, her favorite. The one that Bellamy never went to on his own, because the Shell two blocks down had coffee for a dollar cheaper, even if it was old and burnt to a crisp. Bellamy claimed he couldn’t ever tell, and honestly Clarke believed him. So for him to go to the coffee shop instead; it meant something.

“So are you going to let me in, or do I have to wait until you finish that whole cup?” he asked, raising a brow at her, and Clarke raised one back, not to be outdone.

But it was late autumn, and crisp out, and Bellamy’s hoody was worn pretty thin, so she stepped aside for him, eyeing the bag in his hand.

“Are you moving in?”

Bellamy sighed a little, shifting his feet like he was nervous, which wasn’t a very good sign. “Just for a few days?” he tried, refusing to look at her, fidgeting with his hair and the strap of his bag and the strings of his sweatshirt. “Just until Graham cools off and lets me back into the house.”

“You got kicked out of Chi O?” Clarke asked, suddenly awake. Chi Delta Omega landed Bellamy his scholarship; if he was kicked out, the school would require him to pay back all the money the frat had already loaned—if he wasn’t kicked out of school altogether.

“No,” Bellamy shook his head with a sigh. “Graham and I just—had a disagreement,” he finished lamely, and Clarke glared.

“Bellamy, you can’t fuck up your scholarship,” she warned, and he had the gall to look _amused_. “If you do, then you could lose your placement, you could be _expelled_ , you could—”

“Clarke, calm down,” Bellamy dropped his duffel and reached out to frame her face in his hands. They were still cold from outside, palms and the pads of his fingers calloused, from a life of hard labor. Construction jobs throughout high school, she knows, and a couple lawn-scaping gigs that he had before that. She’s not sure Bellamy Blake ever didn’t work. “I’m not losing anything, alright? Except maybe my dignity, and my bed for a couple of days.”

Clarke had to swallow back her initial response, which lied somewhere along the lines of _we can share mine_ , and closed her eyes for a moment, to clear her head. She was still fairly exhausted, having spent most of the night cramming for a Phys-Apps exam, and it was just very hard to _think_ , with him so close. Close enough for her to count his freckles. Close enough for her to lean in and taste them.

“Oh, be honest Bellamy,” she said finally, looking back at him. “You never had much dignity to begin with.”

He cracked a smile at that, and impulsively leaned in to brush a kiss to her hair. “I promise it won’t be for long,” he said, breezing past her into the living room, presumably to stake his claim on the sofa. “You’ll hardly even notice I’m here!”

“Fat chance,” Clarke grumbled, drinking the last of her coffee, now lukewarm. The skin of her forehead was still burning from where he’d kissed her, and he didn’t even notice.

Bellamy ended up living on their sofa for the better part of a month. One month of running into him on the stairs as he went up to use the shower. One month of hearing him _blend_ things at ungodly hours of the morning—things like kale and butternut squash and _cantaloupe_. One month of coming downstairs to find him just walking in, still drenched in sweat from his run, Steppenwolf blaring from his headphones as he whipped past her through the hall. One month of dealing with his snoring, with all of his papers and notebooks—because he _refused_ to type on a computer when he could just write everything down by hand. Bellamy was a purist—across the coffee table. One month of always finding half a pot of day-old coffee in the kitchen, because he forgot about it. One month of fighting for elbow room when they were both running late in the morning, and had to brush their teeth.

The other girls grumbled about him sometimes, especially when they had to wait an extra turn for the washer and dryer, because Bellamy was once again washing the three changes of clothes that he’d managed to bring with him. But for the most part they endured him with just mild exasperation and even some affection. Bellamy was likeable, really, and fairly popular with most of Clarke’s housemates already. Apparently he’d slept with half of them, and they’d all parted on very good terms.

Those were the sorts of things that Clarke did her best not to think about, because nothing good ever game of it. Especially not once Raven noticed Clarke, flushed and desperate, when she ran into Bellamy on the stairs again, fresh from the shower and wearing only a towel because all of his clothes were still tumbling dry.

It was just a few days after that, thank god, that Graham finally let Bellamy come home. Any longer and Clarke might have actually had a stroke, just collapsed and died right there in the living room.

Apparently Graham didn’t actually have the power to kick Bellamy out completely, and Bellamy was popular with his own house too, so he was voted in fairly easily. Especially since the monthly inspection was coming up, and all fraternity members had to be clearly residing at the house, for it to keep its yearly income. So good looks, charm, and capitalism all won out in the end.

When Clarke told him as much, stretched out and studying on her bed, Bellamy just glanced up from his book and patted her ankle, where it rested in his lap.

“Welcome to Greek Row, princess,” he smirked, and Clarke thought _oh no_.

That was just the beginning. After that, Bellamy seemed to have decided they’d crossed that realm of casual affection and playful flirting, and he wasn’t a bit interested in going back to the nice, appropriate, personal-space-based friendship they’d had before. Now whenever he walked in the room, it was normal for him to sidle up beside her and sling his arm around her shoulders, so she fit perfectly in his side. He gave Clarke his hand whenever they were reading in the library or at the coffee shop, and let her doodle little stars and hearts and planets across his knuckles and palms. He never washed them off completely, so Clarke would still see the faded lines days and days afterwards.

Sometimes he’d press his mouth to her cheek, to her temple or nose, as a _hello_ or a _goodbye_ or a _thank you_. He’d find her sitting on her bed or the downstairs sofa, and promptly sprawl out and rest his head in her lap, butting up against her stomach until she gave in and played with his hair. He grabbed her drink at restaurants, to try, and passed her bites of his meal with his fork.

“Just fyi,” Raven pointed out once, at another mixer, Hawaiian themed, “ _That’s_ why you never go home with someone, anymore.” She gestured with her drink, some sort of hollowed-out coconut, towards Bellamy, at the bar. He was getting Clarke her favorite chaser, because he’d finally convinced her to do shots, even though she fucking _hates_ shots.

Clarke frowned. “I never go home with someone because I don’t want to go home with someone,” she argued, but Raven just gave her most skeptical look, the kind she always uses when she wants to goad Clarke into doing things. Clarke hates how often it works.

She went home with a pretty girl named Niylah, who wasn’t in a sorority, but helped set up the sound system for the party. Clarke woke up and pukes in Niylah’s toilet, and then stumbled home wearing two tie-dyed leas, and hungover.

She closed the door with a _thump_ , startling Raven who was tucked into a makeshift blanket fort on her bed, coding. “You were right,” Clarke said miserably. “About Bellamy.”

Raven frowned over at her, looking the most empathetic Clarke had ever seen. She opened up her burrito of blankets. “Come here.” Clarke moped, and let herself be cuddled.

She almost didn’t answer Bellamy’s _what are you up to?_ text when it came in.

But Clarke is, ultimately, weak as hell, and so she said _Cuddling Raven. Why?_

_i was going to suggest a star trek marathon but honestly that sounds way better. can i join?_

_Sorry,_ Clarke texted, _Only roommate’s get cuddle privileges from Raven._

_what about from you?_

Raven gave Clarke her most judgmental face, which seemed fair. She was in fact, jumping up at the chance to cuddle with the boy she was hopelessly in love with, who probably wasn’t interested in her. But at least it beat moping around in last-night’s makeup.

“At least try to get to first base,” Raven called as Clarke left, and Clarke promised she would.

That was six weeks ago, almost to the day, and Clarke’s never gotten farther than falling asleep on top of him during a movie marathon, and probably drooling on him in her sleep.

Hopefully this is the night that she changes that.

The rest of Kappa Beta Pi arrive throughout the afternoon, leaving a veritable armada of cars out in the drive leading up to the cottage. It’s Memorial Day weekend, which means everyone was free and itching for something to do while campus was closed, but no one had the time or money to fly home. Except for Clarke, who’s the only local.

 _Sort of_ local, really, since the cottage is technically just a vacation home that hers and Wells’ families bought and split the bills for. But either way, it’s nice, and free, and right on the lakefront, so it was pretty much a given that the whole gang would want to spend the break there.

Including Bellamy.

Clarke’s seen Bellamy at tons of parties. They don’t share any classes, so she really only sees him in her off time, and she makes a point of spending most of her off time with him. They _met_ at a party.

But she’s never interacted with him in such a totally off-campus setting, at the place where she spent so many childhood summers. She got her first period in the upstairs bathroom of this house; it feels a little surreal, bringing her college crush here. There’s a tire swing in the backyard, that she and Wells used to play on, and she’s pretty sure they still have some water toys in the wooden shed out back. Her dad made notches for their heights, in the wooden dock posts. She wrote CG WAS HERE in the wet cement, when they had the patio redone. There are a million fingerprints left all over this place by little Clarke, and it feels so _much_ , showing them to him.

Because she knows she will. She’ll drag him to each and every important spot, pointing them all out, just like when he made her climb up that stupid trellis so he could show her the constellations that he’d memorized when he was thirteen. Because they were important to him, and he wanted her to know. Now it’s her turn, and she’s never felt more nervous.

There’s a lot that can go wrong, if she’s misjudging this. Besides Raven, Bellamy is her closest friend at school, possibly her _best_ friend, not counting Wells. He’s one of the most important things in her life right now, and she can’t lose that. She can’t imagine _not_ having Bellamy, which is fucking concerning, since she just met him last year.

But if she’s right, and he likes her too—she could _have_ him. And that’s everything.

Wells arrives just after lunchtime, because he likes to miss the early morning commuters, and he has a longer drive. If he’d gone to MSU, like Clarke, then they could have driven down together, something she likes to remind him of whenever they skype.

Although, if he’d gone to MSU like Clarke, she wouldn’t be anxiously waiting to introduce him to Bellamy, so there’s that.

Wells met Raven when Clarke brought her home over Christmas, because she’d had nowhere else to go and was planning on just spending it, eating technicolor cereal in her pajamas in their dorm room, which of course Clarke couldn’t allow. So she lets Raven lead Wells around the cottage, barking orders about which chairs to move where, and which enormous stone planters should be covered in bubble wrap, so no idiotic frat guys will get drunk and hit their heads. She even gets him to move the tire swing, because she thinks it should be out over the lake for optimum jumping, and because Wells will do basically anything Raven tells him to. When Wells has a crush on someone, he becomes a gigantic sucker.

Bellamy doesn’t show up until just before the sun sets, with Miller in tow. He’s driving the enormous, clunky station wagon that Clarke teases him for, but the rest of his housemates—Graham, Murphy, Mbege, Colin, and Dax—are nowhere to be seen.

Scratch that, Clarke just manages to catch sight of Murphy skulking out of the station wagon’s backseat, six pack in hand. But the rest of the boys are still missing.

“Where are the others?” she asks, as Bellamy and Miller start over. Miller’s carrying one of those mini Heineken kegs that are sold at the local gas station, and Bellamy has a case of some fancy craft beer. Clarke knows he probably only bought it because she’s rich, and he would have felt insecure about showing up with Coors, even though that’s exactly what everyone else does.

Miller slaps Bellamy’s shoulder as a form of some weird boy affection, and heads around towards the bonfire and the majority of the party. It’s nice out enough that most people have migrated outside, towards the fire pit. Raven whipped up some of those frozen mini corndogs, and they’re heating them up on the wire pokers that Clarke’s parents use for s’mores.

Bellamy walks over, and crosses under the heavy orange glow from the porch lights, turning his freckles even darker than they are in the sun, like ink sprinkled across his skin. He gives her that slow, consuming grin that Clarke likes best, because she’s never seen him share it with anyone else. She likes to think it’s hers. Hopes it is, anyway; she has things just for him. It seems only fair.

“They decided not to come,” he shrugs one shoulder, which is his obvious tell. He also looks away when he says it, raking a hand through his curls. She knows every single one of his tics, and she’s sure he knows hers. They should probably never play poker.

“Liar,” Clarke says, and he grins up at her, the shadows making it crooked. Or maybe it just is.

“You caught me,” he waggles the fingers of his free hand in her face, and she catches his hand, lacing it with hers. “I didn’t feel like being stuck in a car with those assholes for four hours, plus traffic.”

He’s staring down at her, daring her to fight him on it, and she’s not sure why he thinks she would, except that she tends to fight him on everything, just on principle. In her defense, a lot of the time he’s _wrong_.

But tonight, she lets it go. She has other things to worry about and besides Bellamy, Miller and _sometimes_ Murphy, she doesn’t like any of his housemates, anyway.

Clarke tugs his hand, still clasped in hers, leading him up the stairs to the house. He raises a brow at her in question.

“We’re not going to the party?”

She shakes her head, just a little, suddenly shy, but he gives her hand a squeeze for reassurance. He always _knows_. “I want to show you around first,” she explains, tugging the screen door open, because sometimes the hinges like to stick. Bellamy eyes the building around them, looking bemused, which is at least better than a frown. She knows Bellamy hates the one percent, and he knows Clarke’s family hits that boundary—so far they just don’t really talk about it much.

“I thought you called this a cottage,” he smirks, and Clarke shoves him in the side. He sets the beer down on an antique wine barrel Wells’ mom turned into a side table.

“That’s what my parents called it, growing up,” she shrugs, leading him through the main floor. “ _Let’s go up to the cottage this weekend_ , or _Clarke you and your friends can stay at the cottage for the holiday_.”

Bellamy tugs her to a stop on the stair landing, so he can study a watercolor painting she did when she was just fourteen. Her dad had it framed, and hung it up, and to this day Clarke’s embarrassed of it. She’d had no real concept of lighting, or shading, or any sort of depth. It’s of the lake view from the dunes out back, and Bellamy stands captivated.

“You did this?” he asks, and Clarke scoffs a little, because she can’t help it.

“Yeah, four years ago. Almost five. It’s shitty.”

“It’s really good,” Bellamy says, but not like he’s arguing. He looks at her, and Clarke freezes at how _earnest_ he looks. “You know I think your art’s amazing.”

Clarke ducks her head a little, but he catches her grin anyway. “Thanks Bell. But wait until you see the bathroom.”

He laughs as she leads him up the rest of the stairs, but he really does lose his breath at the bathroom, just like she knew he would. It’s Mrs. Jaha’s best work. There’s real topaz in the floor tiles, and Jacuzzi jets in the enormous tub.

“So this is how the other half shits,” Bellamy muses, and Clarke swats him with a hand towel. “Do I get to see your room next?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows, and Clarke resolutely does _not_ flush. He doesn’t mean it; there’s no reason for her to get all hot and bothered. He thinks it’s a joke.

“Maybe later,” she says, prim, and heads back down the stairs. “First I want to introduce you to someone.”

“Oh god, it’s not some rich Italian prep boy you know from your time abroad or something, is it?” Bellamy groans, and Clarke barks out a laugh.

“First, I was never abroad in Italy, and _second_ , no. His name is Wells, and we grew up together.”

She can hear Bellamy’s feet stutter and then his curse when he runs into something, and she turns around to find him rubbing his knee like it’s sore. “I just,” he mumbles, “Didn’t see that giraffe statuette.”

“Yeah, the giraffe will get you every time,” Wells agrees grimly from the doorway, and Clarke beams at him.

“Wells, this is Bellamy,” Clarke waves back and forth between them, and the boys give quick, awkward waves. Well, Bellamy gives a quick awkward wave. Wells just grins and gets ready to befriend him, like he does with everyone Clarke introduces him to. She has exes that are still friends with Wells on Facebook.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Wells starts, because he’s the son of a diplomat. “You’re in all of Clarke’s stories about school.”

Bellamy does look surprised at that, blinking over at Clarke, with just the hint of a blush under his freckles, which seems promising. “Yeah, uh, you too.”

“Raven has some corndogs left, if you’d like some,” Wells offers, but Bellamy shakes his head.

“I’m actually gonna go to the bathroom real quick, I’ll meet you guys out there.” Without another word, he turns and practically runs up the stairs. Clarke stares after him with a frown.

“I’m sorry, he’s usually more well-behaved,” Clarke says. “I promise he’s house-trained.”

But when she turns, Wells is grinning bright and wide, from ear to ear. “He definitely likes you,” he says, and Clarke’s frown deepens.

“You can’t possibly know that from twenty seconds of _nothing_.”

Wells shrugs. “I can’t explain how the shine works, Clarke. But he definitely likes you. A _lot_. Enough to be jealous of me, your practically-brother-in-every-way. Enough to freak out about it and run to the bathroom because he doesn’t want to third wheel us. Have I ever steered you wrong, before?”

He definitely hasn’t. Clarke looks back up at the stairs again, like she might be able to see through the floor and into the bathroom, if she tries hard enough. “You’re sure?”

“I’m never sure,” Wells says, because he’s honest. “But I’m _pretty_ sure, which is better than nothing. Are you seriously going to just let him mope upstairs all night because he thinks we’re dating?”

Clarke makes a face at that involuntarily, and Wells laughs. “I guess I’ll go get him,” she sighs, trying to sound a lot more put upon than she actually feels. She doesn’t think Wells buys it.

“I’ll see you guys outside,” Wells calls up after her. “Or not, whichever works for you!” he adds, because he is not at all subtle.

Clarke knocks once on the bathroom door and waits while she hears a toilet flush, even though there’d been no sound before that. He’s _pretending_ to pee, the dork.

Bellamy opens the door and stares at her for a moment, confused, like he thought it’d be someone else waiting for him in the hallway. “Shouldn’t you be hanging out with Wells?”

“No,” Clarke says, because clearly it’s now or never. He’s avoiding her eye again, which means he’s embarrassed, and his neck is all red and blotchy. She’s not _sure_ , like Wells said, but. He’s being sort of obvious. “I should be hanging out with you. You’re the only reason I wanted to have this party.”

Bellamy’s eyes go comically wide at that, like a little kid who’s just discovered magic is real. It’s impossibly endearing, and Clarke was so sure she couldn’t be anymore gone over him.

“You’re the only reason I wanted to come,” he admits, but it feels like something more, like there’s a second confession hidden underneath the words.

“Wells is like a brother to me,” Clarke says, reaching out to graze her fingertips across the back of Bellamy’s knuckles. She can still see the faded ballpoint ink, from when she’d drawn a tiny water buffalo on his hand. “He always has been. It’s—there’s no one. Not like you.”

It’s the closest she can come to choking out the words and if he needs a better, more concise confession, then he’s going to have to write it himself, because Clarke can barely remember how to breathe right, when he strokes her palm, up her wrist and forearm, across her shoulder and along the column of her neck until she’s shuddering under his touch.

It’s just _so much_ , and he still hasn’t said it, but he’s looking at her like he never has before. Eyes soft and open and warm, like she could just curl up in them and fall asleep for ages.

“Me neither,” he says, and leans in to press the ghost of a kiss at the corner of her mouth. It takes her a moment to realize he’s shaking too. “There’s no one like you, not for me.”

Clarke hums against him, sharing his breath for long enough that she gets lightheaded. And then she takes his hand in hers and pulls.

“Come on,” she flashes him a grin over her shoulder. “Let’s go play terrible drinking games with the others and then go make out.”

Bellamy grins back, _her_ grin except better, because it’s brighter and _happier_ now. “I’m in.”

The fire is still burning strong when they get outside, and their friends are steadily getting drunker on the cheap sangria that Clarke’s housemate’s bought from Costco, while Miller and Murphy nurse their equally cheap beer. Bellamy’s craft shit is left forgotten inside, but that’s no real loss, and they each grab a can from the pile that’s been set out on an enormous tree stump-turned-impromptu-table.

Bellamy slots himself in between Raven and Miller, and Clarke sits down in his lap without a word. She can feel his grin pressed to the skin of her hairline, as everyone around them begins to whoop and catcall. She’s pretty sure most of them were convinced they were at least hooking up on the down low, but Miller and Raven and Wells know the truth, and they’re the ones grinning the widest—besides Bellamy and Clarke.

“What are we playing?” she asks, just sort of generally, but Miller’s the one who answers, because he’s the least drunk.

“It started out as Two Truths, One Lie, but I think it’s pretty much just Truth or Dare at this point.”

“Nice, classic,” Bellamy says, at the same time that Clarke sniffs, “ _Boring_.”

Bellamy shakes his head at her, and steels her beer for a sip, even though he has his own already. “You’re such a snob,” he teases, lips wet from the drink when they slide against her ear and make her shiver. “I bet you grew up with some weird, fancy rich kid drinking games.”

“Why do you think rich kids have fancy versions of everything?” Clarke asks, amused.

“Because they do.”

“Well no, for your information, when I was growing up, Truth or Dare was regular old _boring_ Truth or Dare.”

“What makes it boring?” Bellamy wonders, and when Clarke glances up, she sees the rest of the group has resumed their game without them. It makes her smile, seeing how naturally they all just let Clarke and Bellamy seclude themselves, even though they’re seated right in the middle of everything.

Clarke takes back her beer, but Bellamy just shrugs and reclaims his own from a few feet away. “I don’t know,” she admits, taking a pull from the can and then grimacing. It tastes like watered down watermelon, which was a flavor she didn’t know even exists. “The truths that people come up with are all lame, and the dares are all expected. You know, _lick his shoe_ , or _streak naked down the street_. Stuff like that.”

“Clarke Griffin,” Bellamy grins, “Did you streak naked down the street once, for Truth or Dare?”

“I was thirteen, and in my underwear,” she says primly, and he laughs loud enough to shake her, where she’s pressed up against his chest. His hand is warm on the space where her hip meets her thigh, and he slides his thumb under her shirt, to stroke at the skin there.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” he decides, setting his beer down again so she’ll know he’s serious. “Truth or Dare?”

Clarke pretends to think about it for a moment, even though she always picks the same thing. “Dare.”

Bellamy grins, delighted, like that’s what he’d been planning for all along. He’ll probably just have her streak naked down the street, because once again, the dares are always expected.

But instead he says “I dare you to kiss me.”

It’s sweet, even sweeter when she sees how excited he is about it, and he helps her turn around in his lap until she’s bracketing his hips with her thighs, jean shorts a tight pressure right up against her when she moves. She licks her lips, just once, and his eyes follow the movement, before Clarke leans in to press her mouth against his.

Bellamy breathes out into her, one surprised breath, before he opens up completely and rushes out, meeting her at every point. His arms wrap around her, pulling her in as close as she can fit, and she can’t help rubbing against him, little shallow thrusts that no one else will notice, but have him moaning into her mouth. His tongue slides up against hers until she whimpers, and she feels his hand tighten in her hair.

By the time they break apart, Miller and Raven have both shuffled a few more feet away on either side of them, and the sight of it makes Clarke giggle into Bellamy’s shoulder.

“Truth or Dare?” she asks, words muffled by the cotton of his shirt. Bellamy runs a hand up and down her spine, and they’ve barely even done _anything_ , but Clarke still feels like melting.

Bellamy hums, the sound making her scalp itch. “Truth,” he decides, and Clarke nips at the skin of his neck, in betrayal.

“Tell me something you never told me before,” she says, and he pinches her side, soft enough she barely even feels it.

“That’s not how the game works,” he teases, and she pinches him back.

“Too bad. You chose truth, I gave you one, either cough it up or default to dare.”

“Cheater,” Bellamy sniffs, so she knows he’s still upset with her. There’s a moment of silence, while he thinks of his answer, or at least a muted buzz as everyone else continues their own version of the game. They’ve drifted farther and farther, so it feels like Clarke and Bellamy are in their own little private section of the backyard.

“Graham and I didn’t have a disagreement about me,” he says, finally. “We had a disagreement about you.”

That gets Clarke moving again, awake enough to sit up and look at him in surprise. “What? What about me?”

Bellamy sighs, tossing his head back to look up at the stars, like the might have the answer. It’s a habit of hers, she knows. She knows all his biggest habits.

“At that—mixer, the one where we only invited all the sororities?”

Clarke grins a little wryly. “The Pussy Palooza, right?” Bellamy grimaces, but she swipes her thumb over his mouth, so he knows it’s okay. He didn’t come up with the name, after all, and anyway she got to make out with a lot of cute girls because of that particular mixer.

“It was originally for some of my dickhead housemates, to decide which girls would go on their Hit List.”

Clarke remembers hearing about the list; some of her upperclassmen Sisters were complaining about it, earlier in the year. “That’s a sex thing, right?”

Bellamy snorts into her hair, pulling her closer. “Yeah, it’s a sex thing. Basically, they each choose a girl that they think they can hook up with by the end of the semester.”

“And I was Graham’s pick,” Clarke finishes, scrunching up her nose. She can count on two fingers the number of times she and Graham have interacting, and they were both terrible.

“Not if I had anything to say about it,” Bellamy grumbles, under his breath like he doesn’t mean for her to hear, and Clarke leans in to give him the slow kind of kiss she’s always wanted to. He chases her mouth when she pulls away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You would have broken his nose,” he says, and she laughs because it’s probably true. “And then the dean would have been involved, and I don’t know what would have happened. At least my way, he couldn’t really do much. Plus, I figured you’d probably be pissed. _Bellamy_ ,” he does a mimicry of her voice, comically high pitched. “ _I can fight my own battles. I don’t need some meathead Neanderthal doing it for me!_ ”

He’s grinning, but Clarke is serious when she meets his gaze. “I never thought you were a meathead, Bell,” she says, both hands on his cheeks so he can’t look away. Bellamy goes soft at her touch, moving to press a kiss to the heel of her palm.

“Never?” he grins. “Not even in those first few weeks?”

Clarke thinks about it. Thinks about the boy who just wanted to spend all night telling her stories about the stars, just because he thought they were beautiful and he wanted to share them with someone. “Maybe the first few minutes,” she admits, and he kisses her.

“It’s my turn,” she breathes against his lips. “Dare.”

Bellamy’s grin turns wicked and _hot_ , a direct line to Clarke’s cunt that she didn’t know existed. He dips his hands into her shorts, just barely, grazing the skin of her ass. “I dare you to jump in the lake,” he says. “Naked.”

Clarke smirks. “Only if you come with me.”

Bellamy glances out at the water, dark and murky in the night, and Clarke sees just the barest flicker of doubt in his eyes. She leans forward, takes the skin of his ear in her teeth. “Don’t worry,” she whispers, and he shudders under her hands. “I’ll protect you from the monsters.”

Clarke grins and looks around, to find the fire beginning to smolder out into nothing but a pile of charcoal and ash, and the rest of their friends curled up in various positions, either flat on the grass in their sleeping bags, or curled up on the chairs under blankets probably stolen from inside the cottage. Wells and Raven are curled up under a faded quilt. Murphy seems to have nodded off against the tree stump holding all the alcohol, which seems fitting. One of Clarke’s Sorority Sisters has made a pillow out of his thigh.

She races Bellamy to the edge of the water, nearly tripping over the uneven sand dunes in the dark. They undress quickly, eager to slip into the cover of the lake, and leave a haphazard pile of clothes and flip flops on the shore, before wading in. The water is cool, but not uncomfortable or dangerous. It washes over Clarke’s body, and she’s never done this before, even though she’s had years’ worth of opportunity. She’s just never really seen the appeal.

Bellamy swims up behind her, and she feels his hands tracing names of ancient kings into the skin of her stomach, lower and lower, through the thatch of curls between her thighs, and lower still—and yeah, she gets it now. Skinny dipping’s _awesome_.

Bellamy swallows each of her moans, slipping two fingers easily inside her, and then three, thumbing at her clit, slotting his thigh in between hers, to give her something to grind against.

"Come on," he whispers, changing the angle a little until she whimpers, and she can feel the flash of his teeth on her jaw. "Come on, babe. _Christ_ I wish I could see you."

"Next time," Clarke gets out between breaths, and Bellamy swears into her neck, crooking his fingers up and filling her from the inside, until Clarke thinks that she might burst from it.

And then it’s her hands on him, and she’s not the best at it, hasn’t had much practice when it comes to boys, but Bellamy seems to know what he likes, and he likes _her_ , guiding her wrist, breath hitching with each stroke.

"When we get inside, I'll use my mouth," Clarke says, and Bellamy groans, tilting her chin roughly so he can meet her mouth, chanting _fuck fuck fuck fuck_ as a mantra until he comes with a shudder, tucking his face in her wet hair.

He brushes the tangles back when their finished, and kisses her more softly than she’s expecting. He noses at her cheek, and Clarke wraps her arms around his slick back, skin sliding against skin, buoyed by the wind on the water.

“My turn,” he says, and Clarke likes that she’s the reason his voice is hoarse. “Truth.”

“Why didn’t you ask me out before?” It seems like a dangerous question, and Clarke starts to worry her lower lip, without really meaning to. Bellamy reaches up to tug it free. His fingers are wet. They taste like lake water.

“I was waiting for you,” he says, quiet. “At first, I just thought—it was a crush. I’d get over it. You were,” he ducks his head down, gives a dry laugh against her skin. “You were too important to just be a hook up, or one mediocre date. What I wanted with you was so _different_ from everything else I’d ever done, which meant I had to do things differently.”

“Which meant not making the first move,” Clarke finishes for him, and he nods. She splashes a handful of water in his face, because she can’t help it. It’s just—they’ve wasted so much _time_. “You’re an idiot,” she tells him, and he hums in agreement, sliding his mouth against her jaw.

“Your turn.”

Clarke pulls back, so he can see her glare of defiance, and he grins. “Dare. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he agrees. “I dare you to go out with me. On a date. Multiple dates, actually. Every single date.”

Clarke tries her best not to laugh, but she can’t keep it in. When she tips her head back with it, she can just make out Orion.

“Yeah, okay,” she decides, coming back up for air. Bellamy breathes it into her lungs when she kisses him. “I think we can manage that.”


End file.
